CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Lori
I walk ahead of Cole and down the hallway, aware of him at my back closely following me. Tara is sitting at the far side of the table, and I sit down one seat over and across from her. Cole joins us and claims the spot across from Tara. Tara looks at me. “Apologies, Ms. Haven. I deal with being tabloid fodder often and I woke to headlines about me being a drug dealer, and killer, on the very day I’m hosting a breast cancer charity event.”
“Apology accepted,” I respond.
“Let’s get started,” Cole says. “I’d like to move this upcoming interview here to the hotel, and I need to feel good about what we’re doing before I push for that.”
“I’m ready,” she says. “Where do we start?”
“Tell us how you got involved,” he says, leaving her room to hang herself, which he’d already told me he’d do, just as the police will as well.
“Apparently, because I fucked David Curry ten thousand years ago, I must have drugged him,” she blurts.
“Didn’t you just tell TMZ you didn’t sleep with him?” I ask.
“I deny everything with TMZ, per my manager.”
“No comment is the only answer you have to anyone from this point forward,” Cole states.
“Okay,” she says simply.
“It seems a wide stretch that the police would assume your guilt because of a long-lost connection,” Cole comments.
“It’s not long lost,” she says. “We’re still friends and occasional fuck buddies. Some people are just better at being fuck friends than real friends. We were those people.”
“You don’t seem very broken up about the loss of a good friend,” I observe.
“We fucked six times,” she says. “We didn’t share life stories. We didn’t contemplate everlasting love. And it hasn’t even hit me yet. Right now, I’m scared for me. They’ve taken away my ability to grieve for him.”
It’s cold and callous, but not without believability. I don’t like Tara, but that doesn’t make her a killer, and I can’t call her a bad person for flirting with Cole. She doesn’t know he’s with me, and let’s face it, he is hot.
“Tell me about the police encounter you had,” Cole orders.
“They came to the door,” she says. “I told them I needed an attorney to talk to them. After what happened with my father, I wasn’t taking any chances by saying one single word without you.”
“Why would they come to your door?” I ask.
“David called me last night, so I was in his recent calls. He wanted to get together. He was a good fuck, but not good enough to look like shit today for the party.”
“How do you know they’re accusing you of giving him the drugs?” Cole asks.
“They didn’t,” she says.
“You told me they did on the phone,” Cole reminds her.
“They wanted to question me. I assumed.”
“Why would you assume such a thing?” I ask. “What don’t we know?”
“I was in rehab last year after my father was in the press,” she admits.
“Does your father know this?” Cole asks.
“Yes,” she says. “He’s very disappointed. Outside of him and my agent, no one else knows. They’ve kept it out of the press. If it gets out, it’ll drive the insurance costs up on my films and reduce my dollar demands.”
“But the police don’t know that, as far as you know?” Cole presses.
“They can’t know,” she says.
“But you assumed they did last night,” Cole rebuts.
“I don’t know what they can see on their own,” she replies. “Is there a database of some sort? I don’t know what the police know, but if they ask, and I lie, I’m screwed. If they ask, and I tell the truth, they hate my father. I have to assume they’ll leak the information.”
“What kind of addiction?” I ask.
“Pain pills,” she says. “I got hurt on the set of a movie, and the damn things just got the best of me. I didn’t realize I was in trouble until it was too late.”
“I need a list of every medication you’re on now,” Cole says. “They’re going to want it.” He slides a piece of paper and pencil to her.
“I’m on an antidepressant. I really don’t want that to get out. Do I have to give them this list?”
“They can subpoena it and we can fight it, right up until the toxicology report returns. We’ll win unless he OD’d on something other than an over-the-counter medication or one of his own prescriptions, and we’ll make damn sure they prove that before we turn it over. But I need to know what I’m dealing with. I need medication names and what they are used for.”
She hesitates and writes down a list of ten drugs and then slides the paper toward us. “I have MS,” she says. “My father doesn’t know. No one knows, not even my agent and managers, in this case. It’s probably the reason I got hurt on the job. It’s definitely what made me susceptible to the pills. Hollywood is brutal. If this gets out, I’m done. And again, my father doesn’t know. He can’t know. I have a lot that we disagree on, but I love him. I won’t let him take the fall for me, and while I doubt he would now, if he knew the real reason for my rehab, I think he might.”
Suddenly, her diva persona shows itself as a warrior’s shield, but I have to think about the case, so I stay focused. “Does your mother know?”
“No,” she says. “My mother is in love and in another country. Why ruin that for her?”
Cole stands up and motions for me to do the same. “Ms. Havens and I are going to step out of the room and call the detective,” Cole says.
Tara stands up. “Are you formally representing me?”
“No,” Cole says. “I’ll decide after the police interview. I want you to think about your story. I don’t like surprises. Is there anything else I need to know?”
“No,” she says. “There’s nothing.”
Cole motions me forward and when he joins me in the hallway, he says, “Office.”
We head that direction, and once we step inside, we stand face to face. “Tell me your assessment,” he orders.
“I believe her,” I say, “but I don’t like her.”
“Same,” he says. “And she’s right. Her father is not my father. If her father finds out about the MS, he might go down for her.”
I think of my father in that moment, and what my mother said about always feeling loved. He did love me. He would have gone down for me, and I realize now, that maybe, just maybe, it’s time to offer him a little forgiveness. Cole, though, he hasn’t forgiven his father, and it hits me now how new that loss is for both of us. He said he needed to be saved. Maybe he does.